Neanderthal Seeks Human

I was abruptly pulled from my musings by the sounds of his voice, “So, you finished your calls?”

I blinked at him then nodded, “Yes. Yes, calls all finished.” My thumb moved over the smooth screen of his phone. I moved to intercept his table and placed his cell on the surface, “Here is your phone. Thank you again for letting me use it.”

“Anytime.” his eyes moving over me in that way he sometimes employed: a plain, open assessment. It always made me uncomfortable and warm and flustered. He lifted his chin toward the bar, “I don’t know what you drink so I ordered a few things.”

I moved my attention to where he indicated and scanned the glasses sitting on the end of the bar; “Should we-” I cleared my throat and motioned with my hand toward the three glasses of beer in front of Quinn, “should we be drinking while we’re working?”

Quinn took a bite of his hotdog and shrugged, “We’re not working now.”

“But we’re not done, we still have the review of new crowd control measures and-”

Quinn interrupted me with a wave of his hand, “I spoke to Jamal. That part of the tour is off, we’re done for today.” As though to emphasize this fact, Quinn took a long swallow from his glass, finishing another third of the contents before he set it down.

“Oh.” I blinked. I was befuddled and when I am befuddled I tend to speak my thoughts as they occur to me rather than engage in an internal dialogue like a normal person, “So that means I didn’t need to cancel my dinner plans?”

Quinn’s jaw ticked, his mouth was curved into a frown, “I guess not.” he placed three chips in his mouth and made a loud crunching sound as he chewed. His eyes were trained on me as his jaw worked and I felt a now familiar anxiety under the piercing weight of his gaze.

“Well then-” I cleared my throat, “I should call Jon back and see if we can still get together.” I said the words but I didn’t particularly want to follow through on the action. I stalled by glancing at my watch.

“Or,” Quinn leisurely reached over and plucked his cell phone from the table, slipping it into his pocket, “you could stay here and enjoy the concert with me.”

I lifted my wide eyes to his, “You’re staying for the concert?”

He nodded.

I opened my mouth to ask if we were allowed to stay but then thought better of it. I contemplated the current state of things. I contemplated Quinn; he looked relaxed yet somehow on edge. It also struck me again at that moment how startlingly, painfully handsome he was. A fresh stab of awareness sliced through me and, abruptly, I desperately wanted something to drink. Pulling my attention away from him I eyeballed a martini glass on the bar filled with a bright yellow liquid and lemon twist garnish; the rim was coated with either salt or sugar, or salger (sugar + salt).

I crossed to the bar and lifted it toward him, “What’s this?”

“That’s a lemon drop.”

I picked it up and sniffed it. It smelled good. “What’s in it?”

“Lemon juice, sugar, and vodka.”

“Vodka?”

“My sister, Shelly, says it tastes like lemonade.” Quinn took a large swallow of his beer, finishing it, and reached for the second glass next to his plate.

I thought about mixing vodka and Quinn; it would make Quodka, which sounded to me like some sort of Bulgarian card game involving gangsters and prostitutes. I put the lemon drop back on the counter and motioned to his glasses of beer, “Are there any more beers?”

“These aren’t beers, they’re boilermakers- beer and whiskey.”

My eyebrows lifted of their own accord; “Oh.” was all I could think to say.

Considering my options, I took a sip of the lemon drop. It didn’t exactly taste like lemonade but it was delicious. I moved to the buffet and picked up a plate with my free hand. However, before I could start heaping on piles of potato chips Quinn’s voice stopped me.

“I fixed you a plate already. It’s over here on the table.”

I turned to face him; “Oh.” was again all I could think to say.

I put the empty plate back in its place, picked up a second martini glass full of the bright yellow liquid, and crossed to where Quinn was sitting; I slid on to the stool opposite him. The plate he’d fixed contained two hot dogs with generous amounts of both ketchup and mustard, a cornucopia of berries, and a perfect portion of barbeque potato chips.

I smiled at the plate, my stomach rumbled again, and took another sip of the lemon drop before setting both glasses down, “That is exactly how I like my hotdogs.”

His mouth hitched to the side, “Fan of hotdogs, are you?”

I nodded as I bit into the sausage. It was still warm and it was also delicious. When I finished chewing I responded, “It was my favorite dinner as a child. I think I would have lived off hotdogs if my mom would have let me.”

“But she didn’t?”

“No, she was very body conscious, even when we were kids.” I licked mustard off my index finger.

Quinn plainly followed the movement and his eyes stayed on my mouth as he asked, “How many siblings do you have?”

“Two sisters. I’m in the middle.” I took another bite, licking the side of my mouth then washing all the nitrate goodness down with a generous wallow of the lemon drop. I could barely taste the alcohol. “How about you?”

“Um, one sister and…” Quinn took a gulp of his second beer.

I waited for him to continue; when he didn’t I prompted, “And?” then took a very unladylike bite.

“And a brother… but he died a few years ago.”

I stopped chewing and said, not thinking about my very full mouth, “Erm ser serrie erbert er beerder.”

Quinn half smiled, “What was that?”

I swallowed my food, took another gulp of my drink, and said again, “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry about your brother.”

He watched me for a moment then glanced away; he took a large swallow of his beer, finishing the second one off and starting on the third.

My head was starting to feel light, likely the addition of vodka to an empty stomach, but I attempted to push the sensation away and focus on our conversation, “Were you very close?”

He nodded then cleared his throat. Still he didn’t look at me; still he said nothing. Without thinking I reached up and covered his hand where it rested on the table with mine. “That completely sucks.” I finished my lemon drop, raised the elbow of my free arm to table-top, and rested my chin in the palm of my hand.

He met my gaze; his was serious, searching. He turned his palm so that we were holding hands and agreed very quietly, “It does.”

My eyes moved over him in open surveillance; I felt warm and lose lipped, likely also caused by the alcohol, and therefore didn’t think twice before I asked my rapid fire questions, “What was he like? Was he like you? Was he older or younger?”

“He was older. He wasn’t-” his attention moved to our joined hands and he frowned, as though considering something; I noticed his unhappy expression and tried to withdraw but he increased his grip- not painfully, just firmly- and glared at me. As though to ensure I didn’t attempt to escape again, he tugged on my hand. Wordlessly I slipped off my seat and took the one next to him. When I was settled on the stool he seemed to relax and continued, “We weren’t alike. He was a police officer in Boston.” He faced me so that one of his legs was between mine, his foot rested on the bottom rung of my stool.

I tried to focus on his words but the world seemed fuzzy; “His being a police officer meant that the two of you weren’t alike?” I took a drink from the second lemon drop, licking the residual sugar from my lips.

His eyes moved to my mouth, stayed there, seemed to lose focus, “Yes and no. He was honorable. I think he wanted to be a police officer because he always wanted to do the right thing.”

I lifted an eyebrow at him, tilted my head in much the same way I’d witnessed him do a number of times before; “I still don’t understand; you’ll need to be more precise.” I mostly succeed at not slurring when I asked, “Are you saying you’re not like him because you didn’t become a police officer?”

His eyes didn’t move from my lips as he responded, “No. I’m not like him because usually I don’t want to do the right thing.”

Either his proximity or my glass and a half of lemon drops were responsible for the heated deliberateness of my beating heart; I guessed it was a little of both. The air seemed to change, become slower, thicker. I felt like something important had just happened but I was too foggy to grasp it. I did know the way he was looking at me made my lower belly feel delightfully achy and full.

However, before I could consider the issue further, he kissed me.

CHAPTER 11

He captured my mouth, pressing his lips to mine softly then tilting his head and repeating as though he wanted to taste me from every angle. We were joined only by our lips and where our hands still grasped each other on the table; this lasted just briefly before Quinn released my hand in favor of digging his fingers into the small of my back, pulling me from my seat and fully against him. I was between his legs, half standing half leaning on his chest.